#deenine

Another example of Maul lying through his teeth. He does not like or know how to swim.

Maul is an opportunist and a manipulator. These skills only get sharpened from his time alone, and serve him extremely well as the Shadow. Rebels' Maul is an old conman who many see as out of character, but if you look closely there are common threads of using language as a tool.

I firmly believe that he learnt this from Deenine.

And so Sidious looks directly into Maul's eyes as he kills his proto-mother.

I'd like to talk about the class + gender dynamics of this little scene.

Deenine is obviously a British aristocratic servant, if we use the domed lid as a reference. She has served as Sidious' butler throughout the text, with the expected stoicism of the role having morphed into actual faceless steel.

What is interesting here is that she naturally doubles as another role; a mother. She controls the domestic space of this fortress while Sidious goes abroad. She raises and tyrannises Maul, but they must both bow to the patriarch.

Maul was just about to re-don his bloody t-shirt with a hole in it.

Deenine, apparently, does not enjoy inflicting pain.

I won't say that she's secretly a saint, I have too much respect for her to think that. She's demonstrated that she's a bully in earlier chapters, when she beats and mocks Maul in training.

This negative behaviour can be programmed, which I suppose is a part of her soul. Droid souls can be utterly dominated by an external will. No wonder the Sith love them.

It looks like Deenine's scheming has paid off; Maul has learnt how to lie to Sidious to protect her (and his) life.

Clever. But not clever enough.

The pieces can be brought back dead. According to cold Sith logic, there was no reason to spare the droid. Sidious knows that. Ergo, he knows Maul cares for her.